After being able to observe the shift from the traditional, wood-cased Noris to the new upcycled wood Noris in the UK last year (see The new, upcycled Noris) I was able to experience the same transition in Germany now.
What I saw is, of course, only a small snapshot of the two countries as I observed the transition in a city in North West England last year and now in a city in North West Germany. Other parts of the two countries might have experienced the change at different times.
In March 2024, about a year after the switch in the UK, supermarkets here still had the wood-cased version. Here is an example from Kaufland in Ritterhude.
The wood-cased Noris
By now, only the upcycled Noris is available. I assume the old ones sold out and stock just got replaced with the new version. I am not able to find the wood-cased Noris in any other supermarket in and around Bremen anymore, but some pockets with old stock might still be available, especially in shops with low turnover.
In a recent blog post I talked about the new upcycled Noris in the UK. The upcycled version is extruded using a composite wood/plastic material instead of wood. The lead is also extruded and quite different to traditional pencil leads. Glenn, who is a Bleistift blog reader, told me that down South, in London where he lives, the change to the upcycled version of the Noris started last Summer. I guess there’s a higher Noris turnover over there. Around here there are still supermarkets that have not even started stocking the upcycled Noris and only sell the older wood-cased version.
We then also talked about how to recognise if the pencil is upcycled or not. There can be some confusion as I have seen upcycled Noris in the old packaging and Glenn told me that he has seen upcycled Noris pencils that don’t have “Upcycled Wood” written on the barrel.
Here’s a little video that spells out how to recognise which version you are seeing (based on wood grain and lacquer near the cap).
Well, I now have an answer to this question: The Tradition is currently also made from upcycled wood.
In the UK it is common for kids who visit a children’s birthday party to get a goody bag to take home. They usually contain sweets, but you won’t be surprised to learn that the ones we put together contain stationery. Not for the first time we bought Staedtler stationery sets for the goodie bags. This year the goody bags include a set of 12 Noris colour pencils, a Mars plastic eraser and a Staedtler Tradition. I ordered them recently and now that the sets have arrived it turns out that the included Tradition is made from ‘upcycled wood’. You can see the set here[1]and guess what, the day after I ordered these sets for the party goody bags the price came down because they are now on offer.
I am not sure if all Staedtler Traditions are made from upcycled wood, but my guess would be that they don’t produce a wood-cased version on top of the upcycled version as that seems too messy.
With the very common [2]at least in Europe very common Noris and Tradition both being made from upcycled wood I wonder which pencils will be made from ‘normal’ wood now. Does it make sense to have cheaper pencils made from real wood while the Noris and Tradition are not made from real wood? We’ll have to wait and see if the affordable Minerva, the colourful 172 and the ‘natural looking’ 123 60 will still be made from real wood. They are probably produced in much smaller numbers so they might not get the switch to upcycled wood.
When we look at more expensive pencils there is Staedtler’s big boy: the Lumograph. I would be surprised if the Lumograph will be made from upcycled wood in the near future as that would go in hand in hand with switching over to a very different lead. I don’t think the typical Lumograph users would be happy with an extruded lead.
There’s also the question of how all the wood from Staedtler’s new Gmelina plantation will be used. You can read more about it in this press release. How will the wood be used if many of the big sellers are now made from upcycled wood? I hope the Lumograph will be made from cedar, but I wonder if most of Staedtler’s real wood pencils will use their own Gmelia wood soon.
A few weeks ago Gunther told a few pencil friends, including me, that Staedtler’s Noris is now made from upcycled wood. Upcycled Wood is the material formerly known as Wopex. These pencils are extruded and use a wood-plastic composite instead of wood.
Wood-plastic composites were invented in the 1960s in Italy, but they are not commonly used for pencils. I assume that no other manufacturer spent as much effort as Staedtler to make wood-plastic composites suitable for pencils.
The new upcycled Noris in a British supermarket
Well, today I saw the new upcycled Noris for the first time in the UK. Packaging was not consistent, at least not in the supermarket where I saw them:
Packaging variations included:
upcycled pencils in packaging that indicates it contains upcycled pencils and
wood-cased pencils in packaging that doesn’t mentioned upcycled wood
there were also upcycled pencils in the old packaging that didn’t make it explicit that the pencils inside were made with upcycled wood.
I wonder if the new upcycled Noris pencils will change the way schools here in the UK buy pencils. They provide pencils to primary school pupils for free, to be used in the classroom, and most of them buy Noris pencils. Will they be fine with the changes? ..or will they not like the differences? ..or maybe the schools won’t notice the difference? I really wonder…
My first impressions are that, like previous Wopex pencils, the difference between different grades, e.g. 2B vs 2H, is not quite as pronounced in the upcycled Noris as it is in a traditional wood-cased Noris. In the video I link to here I used Leuchtturm paper where the difference between grades is very small. On other paper, like Tomoe River for example here is a huge difference between the different grades.
If you sharpen an upcycled Noris to a very fine point then that point is not as break resistant as the point of a traditional Noris. It is however more break resistant than the point found on earlier Wopex pencils.
On the plus side the upcycled Noris, when sharpened right, has a very nice, waxy-smooth feel to it when writing – the opposite of scratchy.
From left to right: wood-case Noris, Wopex, upcycled Noris
Find out more about the upcycles Noris in this video:
This blog had quite a few Wopex related blog posts over the years – and here’s the latest one: about the new generation of Wopex pencils. This is the third generation I know of, but there might have been more.
Previously… on Bleistift.blog
I got the sheet from the 2010 blog post out and added the new 2017 grades.
Just a quick reminder. Staedtler introduced the Wopex (pencil) in 2009 – it’s an extruded pencil and its body is made from a wood-plastic-composite (which consists of more wood than plastic). In 2010 Staedtler introduced the Wopex in 2B and 2H. I had a closer look at the 2B and 2H version in a 2010 blog post and couldn’t find much difference between the 2B, HB and 2H version. Fast forward to 2016. By now Staedtler is using the term Wopex only to describe the material used to make these pencils. Wopex is not used anymore as a name for the pencil itself – at least not by Staedtler. At the Insights X 2016, they had a few prototypes of the new ‘Wopex material’ Noris eco in 2H, H, HB, B and 2B. At the Insights X 2017, they showed the final product.
Close up of the 2010 vs. 2017 comparison
The new 2017 Noris eco
Looks
The design of the Noris eco is clearly inspired by Staedtler’s European staple pencil, the Noris, but like other Wopex material pencils, the surface of the extruded Noris eco feels rubberised. It is also eco-green, but has the same black stripe pattern as the yellow Noris or the red Tradition: The two opposing, labelled sides (let’s call them top and bottom) of this hexagonal pencil are black. The four sides (let’s call them the two right and the two left sides) are green with a think black stripe in between. I am mentioning this because some of the prototypes had a different pattern.
Unlike previous Wopex material pencils, the new Noris eco has a cap. It’s cool, man.
Great news. There’s a proper difference between the different grades in the new 2017 version. In terms of darkness and in terms of point retention. Compared to the Mars Lumograph in 2B, which is a very easy to erase pencil, the new Noris eco in 2B is more difficult to erase.
Eraser test – the bottom right square has been erased
If you see them in a shop I urge you to give them a try.
